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I’m writing this somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, on a flight from Manchester to San Diego.
Right now I’m embarking on a month-long trip to California, and in the compartment above my head on this flight, in a small rucksack, I have everything I need for the whole journey.
You see, as someone who makes a living from a laptop, I travel. A lot.
And recently I was blessed to discover how you can travel long distances, for long periods of time… with just one, small bag.
For this trip, that includes travelling to at least 3-4 different places, and spending 3 weeks at Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s intensive Islamic studies ‘Rihla’ program.
And I have to say… I feel great about travelling so light!
Here’s why it’s worth trying out, if you’ve never experienced the awesome-ness of 1-bag travel:

• You’ll never have to wait around for your ’23kg’s of stuff you don’t need’ to show up on the conveyor belt.

• After thinking it through carefully once, you can pack and unpack for the rest of your life, in about the same time it takes you to pack & unpack the bag you take to work.

• When you arrive at your destination, you can just take out your clothes & toiletries, and your travel bag magically turns into your every-day work/ laptop bag in about 10 seconds flat. That’s a kind of freedom you just can’t buy.

• Your hands are free throughout the whole journey, especially if you use a rucksack instead of a roller. (I now shudder at the thought of all those years I spent dragging around a big 23kg bag, plus a roller… plus a laptop bag over the shoulder!!)

• Less baggage = more freedom. Perhaps not mentally & emotionally (only the Inside-Out Paradigm can clear out that kind of baggage)… but definitely physically.

• There are a load of things that wouldn’t seem like a good or do-able idea if you have 2 big bags to haul around… but seem fun & easy when you’re on a One-Bag Game-Changing Journey.

• After spending just a few days this way, you might start to re-assess what you *really* need in life… and start to feel genuinely blessed because you have all the things you do need.

• You never waste thinking about what to wear because you have very few clothes with you, and they all look & feel great.

But, probably the biggest benefit of one-bag travel, and the minimalist life-style in general, is that is gets you to put limits on what you take with you, so you choose what’s important, and you really value the things you do bring along.
For example, in a small rucksack, with very little space… I still chose to bring my (not-pocket-sized) Quran.
Why?
Because connecting with it daily is one of the greatest joys in my life. Having it in the bag is a physical representation of that.
I don’t know why other people do minimalism, but for me, the purpose is very clear:
To create an abundance of space that can be filled with Zikr.
The truth is though, you don’t need to be a minimalist to fill your life with zikr (the beautiful, life-enhancing practice of bringing God to mind). You don’t need to have less physical baggage in order to have less mental & emotional baggage. And you don’t need to travel with 1-bag to detach from materialism.
If you want all that, the only thing you really need to know is the Inside-Out secret to how the mind works, and you’ll get to experience more freedom in your life than Jimmy McMinimalist even knows is possible.
So, leave your baggage behind, and fly over here to sign up:
The Ocean: Access Mamoon’s Best Personal Development Programs.